Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

hexor

macrumors 6502
Nov 26, 2002
271
88
Minnesota
Again, which model of the Synology has Thunderbolt built in? Really. I'm curious.

When exactly is the Drobo thunderbolt device going to be shipping? I couldn't find anywhere an actual date when it will be available... so to compare an announced yet unavailable drobo device to another company that also doesn't have a thunderbolt device doesn't make sense.
 

brentsg

macrumors 68040
Oct 15, 2008
3,578
936
What point?
I don't care whether you need a NAS or not. A Drobo and a NAS serve 2 different purposes. You can't compare the 2 directly. Some will prefer one and some the other.

You are missing the point. People keep commenting on the new TB Drobo AS IF IT IS A NAS. As you posted, it is not. The posts you replied to were attempting to make this point by stating that the Synology products everyone is pimping don't have TB interfaces.
 

Ifti

macrumors 68040
Dec 14, 2010
3,921
2,432
UK
You are missing the point. People keep commenting on the new TB Drobo AS IF IT IS A NAS. As you posted, it is not. The posts you replied to were attempting to make this point by stating that the Synology products everyone is pimping don't have TB interfaces.

Ah thanks for that. In future I won't be so lazy and read the thread before responding! Lol
Apologies.
 

jaduffy108

macrumors 6502a
Oct 12, 2005
526
0
Well, if your intention was to defend Drobo products, at least for me, your points made the case against Drobo.

1st - Of course Kelby has a UPS.
2nd - You're blaming Tampa electrical? Absurd.
Must stop here, cuz this is just silly.


I've read Scott kelby's post about his problems with his Drobo's the responses and the reply from Drobo's president.

I've got my own issues with Drobo (Full Disclosure I own two 2nd Generation Drobo units, and have reviewed it for a publication, but otherwise have no connection to Data Robotics or anyone who who works there or works for them).

First issue with kelby's complaints: we don't know the circumstrances. Kelby lives and offices i nthe Tampa Bay area and as anyone who lives there will tell you there are a lot of issues with the electrical supply ther. Becasue the grid there includes areas that get the highest number of lightning strikes i nthe country there can be really fast power flucuations. You need really good surge protection and UPS. I assume Kelby, Inc has this but it is an open question.

First issue with the Drobo: the removable front cover design is really pretty and minimal but also covers up the power lights. there are two of these lights . The one on the right needs to turn off before you kill th power to it. The solution is pretty obvious: change the aesthetics. A DIY solution is to use an electric drill on the internal layer of plastic on the front cover. The better solution is for Drobo to revise their design

Second Drobo and possibly Kelby issue: If you shut a Drobo off , Drobo techs now tell me you need to allow for ten minutes for the units to safely finish doing whatever they are doing internally vis a vis building file structure before turning the power off to them. I do not recall ever seeing this in the manual or hearing this before.

Not waiting the full period , especially if you have to do this repeatedly or if your electrical system is doing this to you, appears (according to the tech I spoke with at Drobo) can really exacerbate file structure corruption is quite often the cause of a Drobo "bricking".


In the pro and amateur photo community Kelby has some sway because of his legions of followers through NAPP. But he is still just one guy and his story is anecdotal.

Finally there is the issue of drives: What drives does Kelby have in his Drobos ? Are they all from the same lot #?

Right now I am looking to add a third on site large storage solution to my set up and in all likely good it will not be a Drobo. Not because I think they are less reliable than other RAID or JBOD manufacturers, but because it seems to be a smart idea to have a basket from form another manufacturer. I am looking at Synology, OWC's QX2, Western Digital enterprise level RAID array, as well as others.
 

sapporobaby

macrumors 68000
Who would actually shell out this kind of money?

Me because I have it but I do not see the point in it. If it made sense I would buy it.

----------

$599 (not including the price of TB cable) for a Drobo Mini (no drives)

vs

$350 for a NAS that runs off 4x 2.5" 9.5mm-height HDD/SDD just like the above (no drives)
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=59754

Drobo needs to drop their pricing by at least $200 before I'd consider getting one of these.

Then don't buy it. No one cares if you don't spend your money on it. When you make these declarative statements who are you trying to impress? No one here cares. This is the Internet...
 

sapporobaby

macrumors 68000
The Synology is a NAS unit.
A NAS unit is designed for sharing and use across the network, not for direction connection. Hence it does not use Thnderbolt.
It offers tons more services over the network then the Drobo does.
I personally think its a much better solution, but I guess it comes down to your personal requirements.

I have both. A Drobo S and a Synology 1512+. The Drobo S operates as the file or media server (iTunes library and Aperture Vaults) stored here and connected via FW800 to a Mac Mini. The Drobo S does a daily backup to the Synology which naturally sits on my network. The Synology is an exact duplicate of the Drobo S.
 

Bartman01

macrumors regular
Oct 23, 2008
168
0
Why do people still buy Drobos? Synology is so much better, among others.

Drobos are slow and really only useful for backing up stuff. Not DLNA streaming and media server functionality.

I agree with your comment about Synology, they do appear to be 'better' on the whole than Drobo - but they have had their own QC issues.

As to the next comment about being slow, not with the current (USB3/eSATA) generation. My current gen Drobo S is my primary DLNA/media server storage and it works perfectly fine in that capacity.
 

Bartman01

macrumors regular
Oct 23, 2008
168
0
Scott couldn't simply move his drives over as you suggested because Drobo is utterly proprietary, not a pure Raid 5...thus data is "held hostage".

You are misinterpreting what I said. He is a smart professional, and has at least 2 other copies of his critical data. He can take the drives from the Drobo, put them in another device (not just another Drobo, but ANY device) and restore his backup to them. Nothing is 'hostage' unless you are practicing poor backup procedures.

The common thread that will give me serious pause the next time I need to purchase one is the poor customer service. I see lots of glowing comments about Synology's customer relations and almost nothing good about Drobo's.
 

theSeb

macrumors 604
Aug 10, 2010
7,466
1,893
none
$650 for that? The joke that is thunderbolt just gets funnier and funnier. Not even firewire had this kind of early adopter penalty...

Thunderbolt is pretty funny. I giggle in delight and sometimes laugh out loud when I see how quickly I can get my work done.

----------

$599 (not including the price of TB cable) for a Drobo Mini (no drives)

vs

$350 for a NAS that runs off 4x 2.5" 9.5mm-height HDD/SDD just like the above (no drives)
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=59754

Drobo needs to drop their pricing by at least $200 before I'd consider getting one of these.

I am not one to like or defend Drobo, but it's a DAS so comparing it to a NAS is a pointless exercise since they serve very different purposes. It remains to be seen though what kind of speeds the Drobo can reach and whether they match the performance of the Pegasus or even the Lacie TB.
 

captain kaos

macrumors 65816
Jan 16, 2008
1,156
28
UK
So everyone posts to complain even though the device has features and benefits different from other NAS products and also initial demand is great.

Trolls.

True, the Drobo has an interesting system, but it also has its own proprietary RAID, which when it goes wrong, goes very wrong.
 

unplugme71

macrumors 68030
May 20, 2011
2,827
754
Earth
Design product and make in China for pennies.

Charge US customers 1000000x more than what its worth after R&D, production, and administrative costs. Pay CEO millions of dollars.

Yup. The American way!
 

numbersyx

macrumors 65816
Sep 29, 2006
1,155
100
I actually have the Drobo S with USB 3 and esata. I intend to get the new Caldigit Card which will give me theoretical transfers of 6G per second. I'm happy with that. Thunderbolt is proving to be the biggest series of rip offs in premium pricing from cords to drives. How do you expect to encourage take up of a technology this way?
 

zzLZHzz

macrumors 6502
Mar 9, 2012
277
71
$650 for that? The joke that is thunderbolt just gets funnier and funnier. Not even firewire had this kind of early adopter penalty...

thunderbolt port connector isn't cheap in the first place. the cable itself cost more than $50 and that is also the case for 3rd party cable. just look at china online store, most of them is more expensive than what apple is selling.
 

jaduffy108

macrumors 6502a
Oct 12, 2005
526
0
OK, I see what you're suggesting now (thanks for clarifying), but...the Drobo from which he pulled the drives is still a "brick". Why would Scott or any intelligent human being continue to invest in a product line that has died on them 4X?

Yes, Drobo customer service sucks, but so does their failure rate. That's a particularly bad combo.



You are misinterpreting what I said. He is a smart professional, and has at least 2 other copies of his critical data. He can take the drives from the Drobo, put them in another device (not just another Drobo, but ANY device) and restore his backup to them. Nothing is 'hostage' unless you are practicing poor backup procedures.

The common thread that will give me serious pause the next time I need to purchase one is the poor customer service. I see lots of glowing comments about Synology's customer relations and almost nothing good about Drobo's.
 

jaduffy108

macrumors 6502a
Oct 12, 2005
526
0
Well, I have been very excited about and anxious for these new devices to become available ever since they were first announced. But I've seen enough dissatisfaction with the company and their products around here to give me pause. I'm definitely going to wait and let others buy up the first waive of products, then see how the reviews come in after they've been in use for a while.

I still like the idea of a portable raid that uses 4 small disks of any size along with a fifth SSD option for handling the active data more quickly, all in a tight package that I connects via thunderbolt and can be carried in the same briefcase as my laptop.


I can understand the appeal of the Drobo Mini. A videographer working with 10 bit HD footage that's on the road a lot, etc. I love that it has USB3 in addition to Tb. Clearly, everyone's needs vary as do their definitions of "portable". I personally do not have a need for a "portable" RAID at 3 lbs that requires AC. But hey, it's a lot more "portable" than a Pegasus! I would be far more inclined toward the upcoming G-DRIVE mini USB 3.0 & FW. Compared to the Drobo Mini, it's a lot smaller and lighter(!) and is **bus powered**. For a 750GB unit, it's gonna be $170. Buy a second one for BU. :)

Funniest part? That little $170 G-DRIVE mini USB 3.0 will be 3x faster than my Drobo gen 2 "FW800" units.
 
Last edited:

barkmonster

macrumors 68020
Dec 3, 2001
2,134
15
Lancashire
If initial demand was great there wouldn't be a need for such an obscene price. I get it...Thunderbolt is new technology, but in this day and age, licensing aside it costs pennies to produce the components used in these products.

Thunderbolt will continue to be a failure until they get real on pricing. It's simply too expensive for even a pro user to consider over the alternatives.

I agree. Also, as it's replacing firewire as the non-ethernet alternative (you can forget USB at this point), it's disgusting how much people are charging when the Thunderbolt cables themselves contain an Oxford Semiconductor chip in the connector. The very same company who make the SATA to firewire chips for Firewire enclosures and no doubt have quite a hand in making the sata to thunderbolt chips too.

There's no reason why a case that simply consists of multiple SATA bays, a power supply (or socket for an external one) and a few chips and connection ports can justify such a high price.

You can buy 2 x 3Tb 7200rpm drives with 64Mb caches and a D-Link Sharecentre NAS for under £300. The Drobo offerings are excessively expensive, as were their older firewire based ones.
 

BiggAW

macrumors 68030
Jun 19, 2010
2,563
176
Connecticut
USB 2 is too slow. Even everyday Joe will wonder why it takes so long for Time Machine to backup. For example.

Everyday Joe doesn't watch how long his backup takes. Heck, computer geek me doesn't. USB 2 is just fine. I get it if you're doing video editing for a living you need stuff like TB, but if you're not doing something disk-intensive for a living, USB 2 should be fine.

I think if you compare USB 3 to USB 2 and productivity means anything to you, you will immediately retract this statement. USB 3 is FAR superior.

I don't know when I've ever wanted my spaghetti of USB devices running off of one USB 2.0 port on my Macbook Pro to be any faster. They are fine. Over the next few years, everything will just be USB 3 by default, and that's great, we'll have a lot more headroom, but anyone who isn't a professional or extreme user and actively seeks out USB 3 is wasting their time.
 

C.G.B. Spender

macrumors member
Jul 10, 2012
74
0
Everyday Joe doesn't watch how long his backup takes. Heck, computer geek me doesn't. USB 2 is just fine. I get it if you're doing video editing for a living you need stuff like TB, but if you're not doing something disk-intensive for a living, USB 2 should be fine.

Fill that USB disk of yours and it will barely give you 15 MB/s read speed. By this number anything you do will be disk intensive.
 

BiggAW

macrumors 68030
Jun 19, 2010
2,563
176
Connecticut
Fill that USB disk of yours and it will barely give you 15 MB/s read speed. By this number anything you do will be disk intensive.

I move 10's or 100's of GB through my years old $10 USB 2 hub, and it's fine. If I'm going to do a big transfer, I just let it rip in the background, and it finishes eventually. I am a much heavier disk user than a typical user.
 

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
Fill that USB disk of yours and it will barely give you 15 MB/s read speed. By this number anything you do will be disk intensive.

Just saying: My 2010 MBP copies large files from one USB drive to another at precisely 34 MB per second. It doesn't matter one bit how full the disks are. And it reads at 34 MB per second from ony USB port, while simultanesouly writing to the other port at 34 MB per second.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.